


The Boy in the Golden Cat

by RoeDusk



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Mentions of Pedophilia, Mentions of Prostitution, Neither actually happens in this story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 17:43:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8336959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoeDusk/pseuds/RoeDusk
Summary: In game it says that at the age of 12 the future Emperor/Empress of the Isles picks their Royal Protector.  Corvo was older than Jessamine by 7 years = 19 when he was chosen, but much older than that and there'd be the chance of losing the protector to age instead of combat.  But how does a young Empress know enough about the world as a 12 year old to make such a choice?  So I wrote a thing. Brayden was 13 when he met Emily Kaldwin.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The Golden Cat is a brothel in Dishonored, so prostitution is mentioned vaguely in this fic. It is also hinted that one or two characters want to sleep with Brayden, but it's not our heroes and nothing comes of this. Just want to warn people before hand in case.

The first time he meets her is the day the Pendleton’s maid doesn’t make it.  Either set on by a gang or Weepers and rats, maybe even killed by an overly suspicious guard, he doesn’t know.  What he does remember is the new Madame yelling for him to come down from scrubbing the rugs clean before she scrubs his arms clean and points to a tray.  He’s to take it to the special guest locked in the West Bedroom, because they’re supposed to be keeping her alive, not starving her.

Prudence seems worried about this, and there’s a list of instructions to follow.  She’s not to know where she is.  He’s not to let her out.  And by no means is he to talk to her.  She shoves the key into his hand with a scowl and points once more at the tray before sweeping out.

Brayden is careful with the tray, and wary of any rats that might try to get at the food.  Since the outbreak, there are more of the animals than even the old cat could have handled.  He puts the tray down on a side table that wobbles dangerously but stays up, then turns the key in the door.  As he opens it, however, a roll of parchment smacks him in the face, and a young girl is yelling at him.  “I won’t!  You’re stupid and I won’t read this.”  Then she stops, realizing he’s a boy her height rather than an elderly maid, and she frowns.

“Who are you?”

“We thought you might be hungry?” Brayden managed before remembering he wasn’t supposed to talk to her at all.  The girl huffed, but nodded.  She stepped forward as he backtracked to pick up the tray, and glanced out into the hall.  Brayden winced slightly.  “I’ll be in trouble if you leave.”

The girl blinked at him, thinking, then sighed and nodded again.  Brayden followed her into the room and put the tray down.  The girl says nothing when he turns back to her, and only nods when he offers her an apologetic goodbye, like his mother had taught him.  Unnerved, he leaves quickly, locking the door behind him. 

 

* * *

 

 The Pendletons send word the next day, asking after their maid.  Prudence spends an hour working on her reply, then burns the inquiry.  They’ve cleaned the Lounge and the Main Hall, and chased off the worst of the rats.  Brayden misses the fat gold cat who used to chase the rats away, but he’d disappeared with the Old Madame when the Watch took over.  Prudence refused to look after the girls as the Old Madame would had done, and the Plague followed.  Even cleaned it would never be the same.  Prudence wanted the private rooms dealt with next, but she stopped Brayden before he could move his cleaning supplies there, and sent him up to the West Bedroom with more food.

The girl doesn’t throw anything at him this time, but she looks like she’s been crying.  He hesitates for a long moment, but she turns her back on him in clear dismissal, so he takes the empty tray back, and leaves the new one behind.

He almost leaves the door unlocked.

 

* * *

 

The Pendletons send word after a day, and Brayden learns they had first ordered no one outside of their employ was to interact with the girl.  He catches a glimpse of the phrase ‘foster dependence’ before Prudence carefully shifts the letter out of view.  But, with the city descending into chaos, they no longer wish to risk their servants on the trip.  There are better things to do with them.  They ask instead that the Madame appoint one of her own to provide food and entertainment to the girl, so long as she is not allowed contact with the worst of the working girls, or given any opportunity to escape.

Prudence tells Brayden he will be responsible for the Pendletons’ secret, and all their displeasure will fall on him, not her.  He sneaks the girl one of their few rat lamps with that day’s tray.  She doesn’t look at it until after he’s gone.

 

* * *

 

Brayden slips out, past the watchful eyes of the girls and Prudence’s tyrannical heel, and goes looking for books.  There’s still a woman living in one of the houses just up the street, and she hands him three when he asks.  There’s a sadness when he asks why she would just give them to him, and she tells him to stay safe and hale, because those books need children still alive to read them.  Then she closes the door, slipping back inside.

When he checks back later, worried, she’s gone, and the house is eerie and dark with her departure.

He’s never read these stories, one a book of sailor’s tales, another a fantastical journey of a hero through Pandessia’s wilds.  The last is almost the same as a tale his mother used to tell him, of the friendship between a mouse and a cat, but without the mouse’s sacrifice.  But he doesn’t read them beyond making sure they look like they could be good.  Instead he hides them in his shirt and hurries inside, bringing them to the girl in the West Bedroom along with her tray.

She smiles for the first time since he’s seen her, and he smiles back.

“I’m Emily,” she says, “What’s your name?”

“Brayden,” he replies. “But don’t tell anyone I told you.  I’m not supposed to talk to you, you know.”

“Well that’s silly,” Emily replied, “I can talk to anyone I want.  And I don’t mind so much when it’s you.  The old maid was mean, though, telling me I would learn proper respect or those bastards wouldn’t ever let me leave.”

“I’m sorry,” Brayden said, knowing sometimes that was all that could be offered when Prudence yelled similar things at the new girls.

“How would it be your fault?  Come on, read with me?”

He looked away, “I need to go, there’s still a lot of cleaning left.”

She frowned, then brightened, “I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow then.”  And she grabbed the topmost book.

He left smiling, but still locked the door.

 

* * *

 

It’s two months later when everything is finally clean enough to open again.  Prudence gets into a writing match with the Pendletons over Emily, and they finally show up in person to sort it out.  They tell Prudence in no uncertain terms that Emily is ‘their girl’, not hers, and she won’t be involved in the runnings of the brothel.

Prudence tells them firmly that the girl won’t be able to use the West Bedroom after opening, because too many people would notice.  They either take her with them when they leave, or allow her to be moved into the hidden living floors.

There’s almost a bad end for Prudence when all the conversation members realize she just told off nobles.  But her point is the most important part, and distracts them all.  The Pendletons relent, and give the ok for Emily to sleep hidden in the living floors with the girls, but she is to have her own room, and they will be the ones to explain it to her.

They storm off, throwing the doors wide to the West Bedroom and grabbing Emily before she can lash out at them.  They pull her hair and hold her in place, informing her that she’s going to stay in her room and go nowhere else or they will see her sent the way of her mother.  She lashes out at them, saying they don’t have the authority for that, that they’re just puppets.  They slap her, hard enough that she stops.

Brayden learns he hates them, more than when they were just clients.  He is cleaning the paintings as they leave, and they leer openly.  Prudence sees, the banker inside her mind starts running numbers before the doors even close behind them.

Brayden steals a knife from the kitchen to hide under his mattress, but he gives it to Emily as soon as she’s in her new room.  She’ll have more of a chance to use it anyway.

 

* * *

  

Weeks later, after he’s found a set of pencils and she’s started to draw scenes from the books, Emily asks what the date is, and he learns it’s been 5 months since they took her.  She doesn’t say where they took her from, but he sneaks her tarts and ox milk anyhow.

He thinks, in the safety of his head, that she must be a noble lady.  The brothers comments of keeping her ‘unsullied’ seems to imply heritage equal to their own.  And 5 months ago the Empress was murdered, her daughter kidnapped.  If the brothers work for the Lord Regent like they're rumored to… why have they waited so long?

So he tries not to think on it too hard.  Because not knowing is safe, only the Overseers would fault you for it.  But knowing and doing nothing, in defiance of the Lord Regent’s edict, would be treason.  And everyone at the Cat would pay.

“Try one,” Emily insists, handing him one of the tarts with a smile, and he obeys.

 

* * *

 

The Golden Cat was open, and the last of the special rooms running once more.  Prudence wrote invitations to all the former patrons, living and dead, inviting them back to the Cat for a good time.  Brayden narrowly escapes her clutches twice, once because he needed to bring dinner to Emily, and another because the girls saw what was going on and distracted her.  But it’s only a matter of time before she tells him he will serve with the girls or get thrown out.

The Pendletons haven’t helped at all, apparently throwing a barb in their last letter at her use of youthful flesh for labor and not pleasure.  But the Cat was the only home he’d ever known, the girls his only family.  And he can’t leave without Emily.

He was certain now that she was the missing princess, but it was all even more complicated.  He’d been with her when the broadcasts started, announcing the Royal Protector’s escape, and it brought her to tears.  Brayden stammered over his reassurances, only to have her look at him like he’d grown a second head, and tell him she was glad he survived.

Then he had to tell her the official story of what had happened to the Empress, and she just blew.  It wasn’t Corvo, she hissed at him, it was an assassin in red, and Burrows was the one telling the Pendletons to keep her here.

He’d just managed to keep her from going off loudly with a warning of what Prudence would do to the girls if she thought any of them might hear.  But now he needed to get her out before things got worse.

The Pendletons were coming in a few days, he’d seen the seal on the letter himself.  Prudence would demand his attendance, and it would all be a ruse for them to get back control over Emily.  He couldn’t let that happen.

But there was something bugging him that he wasn’t quite sure how to use.  The Old Madame had been good, but she’d been working for Slackjaw, paying him a cut in return for his protection for her girls.  When the watch swooped in and took her away, Slackjaw backed off, but Brayden knew he was still watching.

He’d have to go about this really carefully.

 

“Aren’t you a little young to be here, kid?” the gang leader asked, looking down at the 10? 12? year old facing him.  “You can’t even drink yet, can you?”

“I know you used to take a cut of the Golden Cat for protection,” Brayden blurted, “But I also know you looked out for the girls more than the Watch or Prudence ever will.  Nobody got away with hurting them with you.”  Slackjaw blinked, but Brayden pressed on before he could reply.

“Prudence sold out to the Lord Regent, and now every one of my aunts is sick, but that’s not the worst part.  The worst is she’s letting the Pendletons keep Emily there, and she’s only 10.”

“That’s awful, kid, but not my problem…”

“And I think she’s the Princess.”  Brayden spoke over him.  Silence fell in the room.

“You… what?!” Slackjaw managed, but Brayden was talking again.

“They keep saying no one is to know she’s even there.  I think they have some sort of deal where they hold her until she’s old enough then get one of them married and a son on the throne.”  Slackjaw could only stare, mind still reeling.  Brayden took a deep breath and finished with, “And she says the Regent’s the one who handed her over to them in the first place.”

“Damn,” the gang leader breathed, before leaning back, “That’s some story, but what you expect me to do about it?”

“I can get her out,” Brayden murmured, “And here is the _last_ place they’d look with the Royal Protector on the loose.”

Slackjaw stared at him, blinked, then laughed.  “You’ve got guts kid, and something resembling sense.  Fine, go get the girl and bring her here.  No harm will come to the Princess while Slackjaw be looking out for her, you have my word.”

Brayden breathed a sigh of relief, but before he could turn to go, Slackjaw caught him with a hand on his shoulder.

“And bring your own things, lad.  Slackjaw’ll take you both.  I thinks, maybe the Princess will want to keep her defender.”

And that was all it took for Brayden to realize he was actually willing to leave his home and family behind if he could only make sure Emily was safe.  He nodded, and flead.

 

* * *

 

It was only a week later, but it felt like years, when the man in the Mask walked in to talk to Slackjaw, code in hand already from a woman he helped off the street.  Brayden looked up from where he was leaning on the wall, watching Emily in her boy’s clothes playing with the fat gold tom cat Slackjaw had kept when the Old Matron died.  He knew of the gang boss’s suspicions, but didn’t know enough to judge of the man’s identity for himself.  So he watched Emily, and nodded when he saw her start at the other’s voice.

She froze still holding the cat, turning to the Masked Man with wide eyes.  As though he might suddenly vanish into smoke.  Not that unlikely, if the stories were true.

“You best go see the kids, before they come over here wanting a better look at that mask,” Slackjaw finished, throwing an arm around the Mask’s shoulders before the other could react.  Pulling him around the desk and over to Emily.

“Corvo?” the Princess whispered, and Brayden pulled her hat off, earning him a glare from her and a gasp from the Royal Protector.

Uncaring if he was in the room with an urchin and the head of the Bottle Street Gang, Corvo pulled off his mask, opening his arms to her.  Emily dropped the cat before throwing herself at him, and the disgruntled animal moved to up to the corner of Slackjaw’s desk for a better view.

“'Bout a week ago, the boy comes to me, saying he knows where the Princess is.  Only, she’s locked in a brothel under orders of the Lord Regent,” Slackjaw explained gently. “Kid says he can get her out, but I need to keep them under my roof, keep them safe.”  The gang leader stalked back to his desk with feigned disdain, “Now, I’m not one to play in politics, I just don’t like folk who hurt kids.  You best be takin them with you when you go.  The cat too.  They’re not Slackjaw’s problem no more.”

Corvo nodded seriously, squeezing one more time before letting Emily go and replacing his mask.  Brayden picked up the golden cat, who curls happily into his chest, claws out to hold on, his layers keeping them from drawing blood.

“Brayden,” Slackjaw said quietly as Corvo stood and prepared the Princess to go, “Make something of yourself.  I did.”

Brayden smiled up at him, and Slackjaw blinked back for a moment before looking determinedly away.

“And if any of you need real work, come find me.”

The golden cat opened one eye at that, and purred loudly.  Slackjaw shot it a doubtful look, “You don’t work, cat.”

Corvo actually laughed then, a startled, stilted thing, before turning and leading the Princess out.  She glanced back just once to make sure Brayden was following.  He didn’t look back at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Found this on my computer and felt like I should really post it before Dishonored 2 came out.
> 
> I'm assuming Corvo is successfully Ghosting this run and generally not killing people. And... Slackjaw always struck me as a giant softie who is as brutal as he has to be in the world he lives in and does well, but is still a giant softie. 
> 
> Will Brayden become the next Royal Protector? No idea, but he has a good recommendation at least. (I'm assuming he survives the end of the game, and probably tries to help rescue Emily, but not planning to write it.)


End file.
